


dreamboy

by dw_fwedewick_heweiden



Series: ChowderHearts / Kingdom Chowder [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Child Death, Corruption, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Manipulation, Science Experiments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24279943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dw_fwedewick_heweiden/pseuds/dw_fwedewick_heweiden
Summary: Ialu trusts very, very easily.
Series: ChowderHearts / Kingdom Chowder [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752709
Kudos: 1





	dreamboy

It’s a bright, sunny day when Lusine first arrives in their forest, appearing out of nowhere in a clearing near the middle of the forest.

This is not a situation either Ialu or Entropy had prepared for - no stranger had wandered into their forest, not since Ialu himself. Lusine seems to take it in stride, introducing himself before either of the two could ask.

“My name is Lusine,” he says, his voice quiet. He fiddles with his staff, running his fingers up and down the gnarled wood. “Would you, ah, happen to know where I am?”

Neither answers at first. Ialu can almost taste the awkwardness. Entropy is the one to break the silence, clearing his throat and discreetly shifting in front of Ialu, something the eight-year-old appreciates, but doesn’t think is necessary. “You’re in our forest,” he states, his voice smooth despite being unnerved. “I’m afraid I can’t give you anything more specific.”

“Ah, that’s alright,” Lusine says, though his expression shifts, ever so slightly, no longer showing his true feelings. “I shouldn’t have expected…”

“Expected what?” Entropy snaps. “The forest doesn’t have a name. It doesn’t need one.”

Lusine seems taken aback, his knuckles turning white as he tightens his grip on his staff. “Apologies,” he states, his voice wavering. “I did not mean to offend you. The question was merely for conveniences’ sake.”

“Well, take your conveniences and leave,” Entropy says, his voice cold. He lays his hand on Ialu’s shoulder, gripping it firmly as though Lusine might try and steal him away. “I don’t see a need to continue this conversation.”

Ialu catches a glimpse of Lusine’s confused expression before he’s ushered away towards their home, leaving the strange visitor in the clearing alone.

  
  


Two months pass without incident. Ialu is allowed out without supervision, now; even though the boy’s only eight, Entropy thinks he can handle himself. He takes great pride in this, and though he can’t hunt, he does his best to use his unsupervised time in a helpful manner, though it often devolves into flower picking and daydreaming.

It is during one such expedition that Ialu encounters Lusine again.

Lusine looks much the same as he did two months ago, though his hat seems somewhat newer, and the gem on his staff is shinier, like it’s been recently polished. He doesn’t seem to notice Ialu as he sneaks up behind him, preoccupied with writing in the notebook he’s holding.

Ialu taps him gently. Lusine jumps and whirls around, dropping the notebook in favour of his staff. He brandishes it threateningly, though he isn’t all that intimidating, but relaxes once he sees Ialu. “Ah, it’s you!” he exclaims with a false cheer in his voice, quickly shoving the staff back into its sheath. “I didn’t expect to see you again. I don’t think I caught your name?”

There’s a few seconds of silence before Ialu realizes the man expects an answer, and he states his name as clearly as he can. Lusine picks his notebook up and marks something down before looking back up - or, well, down - at Ialu. “You live with that...tree thing, yes? Would you happen to know his name?”

Ialu nods and tells him Entropy’s name. Lusine writes this down as well before looking back to Ialu, considering something. “You don’t mind me taking a look around, do you? I think this area is rather...interesting to study, to say the least.”

“No,” says Ialu, who is wondering where this is going.

“Great, thank you!” This time the cheer in the mage’s voice is genuine. “Although, perhaps don’t tell your father about this. He is your father, right?”

Ialu shakes his head. “Just live with him,” he murmurs.

Lusine writes something down, a sympathetic look in his eye. “Ah, an apprenticeship? You look a little young for that.”

Ialu just shakes his head again. Telling this man everything feels like it would be a bad idea, and besides, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Not today, and not ever.

Lusine’s expression changes to one of confusion, and he fiddles with the pen in his hand, smoothing the feather on the tip down over and over. “Something else, then?”

Ialu doesn’t bother shaking his head this time. Instead, he goes back to picking flowers. Behind him, Lusine sighs. Grass crunches as he walks away, leaving Ialu alone once again, just as the boy intended.

  
  


Three months pass; Lusine visits more and more frequently, always with a notebook and pen, and of course his staff. Sometimes he brings complicated equipment and mucks around with the plants and wildlife; sometimes he simply wanders about the forest, writing things down as he goes.

As the days pass, Ialu begins interacting with Lusine more and more. The man doesn’t seem dangerous, just curious about the forest and how it works. Ialu finds himself growing curious as well, accompanying Lusine as he does his studies. Lusine would write things down, and Ialu would pick flowers, and everything was good.

And this is what Ialu is doing today. His basket is slowly filling up with flowers of all shapes and colors. He doesn’t know what most of them are called, but Lusine does, and sometimes he’d teach Ialu some of the names during their break.

This was not one of those times, though; Lusine is quite preoccupied with his research, fiddling with some large machine that, on occasion, beeps and spits out some paper. Ialu asked how it worked earlier, but Lusine ignored him. For now, the boy contents himself with picking flowers and listening to Lusine mutter under his breath about his work.

As Ialu picks flowers, he looks up at the sky, blue as a robin’s egg. Absentmindedly, he wonders if there are any other worlds out there, before internally dismissing the question. Of course there are other worlds. Lusine had to come from somewhere, and so did he. Neither of them came from the flowers, or the animals, or the trees like Entropy, so they must have come from other worlds, floating out in space.

He wonders if the planets are lonely, for a second. Did they wish they had friends, all alone in space like that? Or were they content to be alone?

Behind him, Lusine finishes up his work. The machine beeps, loud and long, attracting Ialu’s attention. It’s spitting out paper again, creating a small pile at Lusine’s feet.

Ialu wanders over, basket in hand. Lusine ignores him, more absorbed in the paper he holds up to his face. “Interesting,” he mutters, writing something down in his ever-present notebook. He flicks a button on the machine, and it quiets. He rests his hand on it, tucking the notebook into his coat. “Ialu, I’m going,” he says, though he doesn’t look at the boy. “I’ll see you some other time, alright?”

Before Ialu can reply, Lusine is already gone.

  
  


Lusine comes back a week later, without any special machinery, though he brings a large stack of papers with him. Ialu waves at him, already preoccupied with his flowers, and Lusine waves back before busying himself with his work.

A few hours pass. Ialu picks flowers and watches the clouds, daydreaming about what other worlds might be like. Lusine sorts through paper after paper, muttering under his breath, occasionally scowling at the results printed on the pages. Ialu tries not to stare; it’s rude, after all. Lusine doesn’t seem to notice him at all.

Ialu stares at a cloud in the sky. If he squints, it almost looks like a cat. He watches it float across the sky until something catches his attention in the corner of his eye.

Lusine has stood up, the papers lying discarded in the grass. He makes his way over to Ialu, the grass bending and breaking under his feet. Ialu sits up, and Lusine sits beside him, his face somber.

For a few moments, it’s just silence between the two of them, Lusine deep in thought. Then, he turns to Ialu.

“Ialu, have you ever heard of something called a heart?”

Ialu nods. Of course he has. “Everyone has a heart. It’s what keeps your blood flowing.”

“I don’t mean that kind of heart.”

  
  


Ialu is nine, now. It’s been almost a whole year since he first saw Lusine; in the past few months, the man’s been including him in his experiments more, assigning him to simple tasks at first before moving on to more complicated ones. Ialu enjoys his work, even if it’s can be a bit mundane; still, he always finds time to pick flowers. He wouldn’t want to forget those, after all.

Lusine has brought in a machine taller than Ialu today; as such, the boy can’t be of much help, since he can’t see the screen. Lusine tells him to sit nearby, that he’ll be called when he’s needed; Ialu complies dutifully, and begins picking flowers, though he remains alert in case he’s called.

He finds himself reminiscing over the past year. He’s learned quite a bit about what Lusine’s been doing, and though he sometimes gets confused with the terminology, he understands it fairly well. Ialu feels proud of himself for that; the work is something that Lusine had said adults didn’t understand, so surely he must be doing something right if he understood it as a nine-year-old.

Some parts of it are concerning, even to him, but he tries not to think about that. The possibilities scare him. He’d rather think about the good this could bring; at least, that’s what Lusine tells him to do, and Lusine almost always knows what’s best.

His introspection is interrupted by Lusine calling him, and he hurries over, excitement bubbling up in his chest. Finally, something to do.

  
  


Another year passes. Lusine delves deeper into the magic of hearts; some of his work moves over to his lab, a place Ialu can’t visit. He feels strangely left out at first, but he’s ten now; he shouldn’t feel so jealous, he tells himself. He knows better. He’s older now.

And it’s not like he’s been abandoned, anyway. Lusine still does a good portion of his research in the fields with Ialu, and the boy often found himself up to his head in research, even if it was mostly small jobs. He doesn’t mind; it’s something to do, something to busy his mind with.

But…

Over the year, Lusine changes.

The changes were so small at first; an offhand comment here, a blank expression there. Ialu questions the morality of the scientists Lusine bases his work off of, and Lusine defends them. Things that he can overlook.

But then they got bigger, and bigger. Lusine starts his own experimentation on hearts; first on animals, and strictly in his lab, but he starts to move the animal experimentation to the fields, and Ialu is beginning to doubt it’s just animals in his lab anymore.

(Ialu feels bad, at first, when he starts sneaking the animals out after the tests. He doesn’t feel bad anymore.)

Lusine acts strange around Ialu, as well, observing his actions and emotions, like he himself is one of the experiments. Ialu doesn’t like it. He wants him to stop, and almost tells him to, but something stops him.

Fear.

He’s scared of what Lusine will do to him if he defies him. He’s scared of what will happen when Lusine finds out he’s been sneaking the animals back into the forest. He’s scared of what will happen if he screws up.

He’s scared of what will happen when Lusine gets bored of him.

The rush of having Lusine notice him, specifically, wears off quickly over the year; Ialu finds himself not wanting to work with him anymore. But he does it anyway, fear keeping his mouth shut and his hands busy.

Until today. Lusine doesn’t show up; Ialu breathes a sigh of relief. He turns to go back, deeper into the forest; he could pick some flowers on the way home, and maybe Lusine wouldn’t come back the next day either. Maybe Lusine would just stay away forever. That would be nice.

And Lusine doesn’t come back the next day, or the next. Ialu starts getting worried after three weeks pass. As much as he’d like it if Lusine had left forever, he can’t shake the feeling that something horrible has happened, or is going to happen, or maybe even is happening right at that moment.

(Was it his fault?)

  
  


Another week passes. He goes out intending to pick flowers in the woods, and finds himself in the clearing once more. Flowers are growing there again; for a while, the field had just been grass, with no flowers in sight. At the time he hadn’t thought much of it, but now he wonders if it was because of what they were doing there.

Distracted by his thoughts, he doesn’t notice the rustle of the bushes behind him as he leans over and picks a flower, turning it over in his hand.

And then he’s on his back, all the air driven out of his lungs. Something blunt and heavy pokes into his neck, obstructing his breathing, and he scrabbles at it for a moment before giving up.

Lusine stands over him, a smirk spreading across his face. Ialu realizes with a jolt that the thing he’s holding resembles a key of some sort; he vaguely recalls Lusine talking about some sort of key-shaped weapon before his disappearance.  _ Did he actually manage to make one? _

His eyes look different; emptier than ever, not a shred of emotion in them. Ialu bites his bottom lip, fear rising in his chest as he stares at his assaulter.

“Lusine?” It comes out weak and shaky, wavering as he tries to stay as still as possible. Lusine doesn’t respond, instead pushing down on the key. Ialu chokes, hands coming to his neck once more as he attempts to clear his airway; Lusine seems amused by this, and presses down harder, bringing tears to the boy’s eyes as he struggles for air.

“Ah, Ialu,” Lusine says, finally. Darkness is edging on Ialu’s vision; he lets out a strained whimper as he desperately tries to free himself. “I wondered when you were going to stop by.”

Lusine lets up on Ialu’s neck a little, and he gasps for air, trying to fill his lungs while he still has the opportunity to do so. The reprieve is short, and he feels a pressure on his chest as Lusine moves the weapon there, pressing down hard enough to hurt.

Ialu steadies his breath enough to speak. “Why?”

The pressure on Ialu’s chest abruptly vanishes. Ialu doesn’t dare move. That’s his first mistake.

Lusine stares down at him, his expression cold and empty, weapon lifted just above Ialu’s chest. Ialu stares back, eyes wide with fear, still panting from lack of air.

“Well, simply put?” Lusine says, something cold edging his voice. His smirk returns. In one swift motion, he slams the weapon down on Ialu’s chest as hard as he can, and he hears something crack. Darkness swarms his vision, and Ialu chokes as pain overtakes his entire being, tears running down his face.

He hears Lusine say something, right as he loses consciousness.

“I just felt like it.”

**Author's Note:**

> so uh-  
> this was written a bit ago, actually! april 26. probably very late at night. it's not the best but yknow.  
> this takes place BEFORE chowderclef's epic adventure (god i cant believe im typing that)


End file.
